“This, I know,” she began and I braced because her voice had gentled and she’d leaned into me when she spoke. I took these as warning signs and I was glad I did when she continued. “I have worked at Karsvall for twenty-three years. And thus, I was there when Ulfr brought home his bride.”
I pulled in a sharp breath.
She kept going.
“Honestly, I knew no husband and wife who settled into marriage, and then parenthood, with the ease in which those two did. They had a steadiness that would have seemed unnatural if it wasn’t so beautiful.”
This, I did not need to hear.
Since I knew she was trying to be nice, I didn’t tell her that and she kept talking.
“When she grew ill, he went to her several times a day, every day, and from their bedchamber, you would hear laughter. You would think nothing was amiss from the noises coming from that room. But when he left and the door closed behind him, the cloud would descend. She was in her bed, she never felt it, but it followed him with every step he took. He is a good man, neither servant nor soldier bore the brunt of that illness eating away the woman he loved. But as it ate her away, it ate him too. And when she was lost, that cloud descended and stuck, immovable, shadowing him everywhere he went, except when he was with his children.”
I pressed my lips together as I felt my eyes sting with tears.
That was so Apollo, to go to Ilsa when she was sick. Visit with her. Make her laugh.
But every time he did it, it had to kill him more and more.
I hated this for Apollo. Hated it.
“Then came you,” she stated.
At that, my lips parted.
She kept going. “At first, when I laid eyes on you, your resemblance…extraordinary. I feared I understood his attraction to you and it was not healthy.”
I held her eyes.
She went on.
“But what I saw was not him attempting to recreate what he had with Lady Ilsa. It was him building something new with you. Although she could make him laugh, the air did not ring with the richness of it near as often as it does with you. Although she was his wife and the mother of his children and he is a certain type of man, the type who would lay down his life to protect theirs, he did not look on her as if he needed to spring to her side at any given moment to shelter her from a storm.”
Oh God.
Apollo looked at me like that?
My heart clutched.
She kept talking but did it softly.
“What you have is new. So you may not know him well enough to understand that even if it is he who should ride to you to heal what has broken between you, his pride will not allow it. It may be that whatever happened between you is keeping him awake at night. He still won’t do it. He is a man, but he is also an Ulfr. They have many qualities that are very good and these qualities make them the best House in Lunwyn. But with any good comes bad. I mentioned he is proud. But he’s also stubborn. And last, he is a man used to getting his own way. And these three together will make things difficult at times for the people around him, most specifically the woman who warms his bed.”
“I get you, Cristiana, boy do I get you,” I told her. “But when he has something to say, he doesn’t let me get a word in edgewise.”
“Then, dearie,”—she leaned deeper into me, grabbed my hand and held it tight—“you must find a way to communicate, to make him listen, and that way may not be through words.”
She was making all sorts of sense and it was an understatement to say that I liked—no, I had to admit I loved some of what she was saying.
But I didn’t get that.
So I shared, “I’m sorry, Cristiana, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Pay attention, Miss Maddie,” she whispered, “for, if a woman is clever, and she pays heed, every man will give her clues as to how to make her will be known and even how to make her will be done and have he be the one who’s doing it.”
Holy crap.
“Are you talking about using sex?” I breathed.